serfty

There's a greater DJ presence on AFF (Velocity Rewards & CrazyDave98) these days. As a long time member of that site, Dave, maybe you could PM them.

austgap

Just wanting to know what people's experience with the wait time to hear back from Velocity rewards have been? I e-mailed them with the required details, just curious when you FF's had gained a response from Velocity?

serfty

From AFF: (http://www.australianfrequentflyer.c...tml#post375179 )

djsflynn

Just chiming in here with two quick points.

Firstly, as editor of Australian Business Traveller I'd like to refute Velocity's claim that we in any way incorrectly reported this status match deal. We called VR, spoke to a customer service rep and got all this info first-hand from them. (We wouldn't run the article without having done that legwork.)

Secondly, while we've updated our article on AusBT to reflect the closure of this status match deal, we again called VR's customer service line and have been told that you can still get in today on the condition that you currently have a Premium Economy booking with Virgin Blue between Sydney and Melbourne or further (and of course, are Platinum or Gold).

So if that's you, better be quick about it!

orac

"The Velocity Program has previously matched Status tiers on a case by case basis to allow those that travel frequently the opportunity to experience benefits that Velocity provides Virgin Blue frequent flyers.
Because of the overwhelming demand recently, our status tier matching allocation has now been exhausted and unfortunately further claims are not able to be processed".


Bugger.

Lucky_man

DJ seem to be the great teasers.

They told me I'd been promoted to gold in the Email debacle some months ago.
Then said it was a mistake.

Now, I sent my info in for staus match but I seem to have missed out.

I feel worse than if they hadn't offered it in the first place (if in fact they had, which I suspect they had until it got out of hand).

Tiger here I come! How could they disappoint!

bugayev

With respect, why was a media outlet contacting their customer service centre rather than the media office?

physhure

I've just spent an hour waiting on the phone, and the gentleman informed me that the offer was recinded on 10nov10.
Does anyone know different?
David

PS just read the last posts: ditto orac: bugger!

djsflynn

Yep, that's what Velocity told us on Thursday or Friday arvo - that they had shuttered the status match as on midnight Wednesday.

djsflynn

Hi Bugayev: in my experience I find that calling a customer service centre, just like any punter would, gives a response that's faster and comes direct from the coalface compared to going through the media/PR office. You get the exact same info that any customer would be given.

[If you call media/PR you have to assume they are there and not busy on something with a higher priority; then they have to go to a Velocity manager and pass the enquiry to them; then that manager has to add it to their to-do list and maybe hand to someone else to chase the info; eventually it finds its way back to the media/PR who then gets back to you. That process can take hours or even days. No PR person would make an enquiry like this their #1 priority, and there are also times when it's going to be way down the list if the office is working on media statements, financials, annual reports, prepping for a launch or such. And that intervention also affords media/PR the chance to filter and control the information, and to parse statements into PR-friendly form. So there are times when it's appropriate to go to a media/PR contact, and times when you go straight to the source.]

m0hamed

With respect, that makes your website sound rather amateurish. There is a reason the media and PR departments exist within organisations. By choosing to not utilise an official resource, you lose legitimacy of your news and brand. But I think this you have already discovered by now.

I actually like your website and read through a few stories.

djsflynn

Actually, you'll find most journalists do exactly the same thing - head for the source - and for the same reasons. It's actually a professional strategy, it's what most journalists are taught.

The reason: because nine times out of ten that is where the news is stumbled upon. The moment you go through PR/media you are adding room for intervention that is not always in the best interest of the story.

I could easily have called up the PR folk. We've worked with them in the past and will do so again in the future.

But in addition to having been a full-time journalist for 15 years I and also did 10 years in PR, so I know how this works from both sides of the fence.

And I also know that yes, there are times when it's totally appropriate to call the PR department. We do that as well.

But in an instance like this, the information we got was exactly as other people where being told, and that was the story. How many other people called the customer service line, were told the same thing and thus took advantage of it? Many before our story, to be sure, and plenty afterwards as well.

So I don't think our brand lost any legitimacy, even after Velocity backpedalled. I believe we gained points with readers who took advantage of the deal before it was closed, we gained profile for running useful stories like this, and we also twice promptly updated our story (with a changed headline, and then tweeted the changes) as things changed.

d00t

djsflynn- I think you do a great job with ausbt, good solid read and well worth adding to the bookmarks

Velocity were the ones who lost legitimacy over this by turning away 'some of the most valued frequent flyers' (as QF says).

Keep up the great work djsflynn

perthite

The problem is that the spin coming out of PR departments does not always reflect the reality of customer service at the coal face. I would argue that as it is, too much media just regurgitates what PR departments put out and doesn't ferret out the true story.

m0hamed

That's not the point. The point is that the media and PR department at DJ could have accurately articulated the status match offer, any appropriate conditions and expiry date as decided by the sales and marketing department. This would have given a more accurate reflection than calling the customer service line. While call centres are supposed to have accurate information, in reality, most media would go to the appropriate resource.

It would be like SMH calling the Qantas call centre for a statement on what happened on QF32, or new product information. It just wouldn't happen.